Jefferson revises its noise regs

Posted: Wednesday, September 28, 2011

By Merritt Melancon

JEFFERSON -- Jefferson police officers are hoping that a new city noise ordinance, passed by the Jefferson City Council on Monday, will make the city's noise control laws easier to enforce and more equitable.

"I think this is going to be a fair ordinance and I think it was the responsible thing to do," said Police Chief Joe Wirthman. "We've spent a lot of time -- too much time actually -- on this, and I think with this ordinance we've met the needs of the community."

Downtown Jefferson has been the center of a five-year dispute over amplified music and noise control that has led the council to discuss the wording or enforcement of the city's noise control ordinance almost every year.

The new ordinance better addresses how and where officers should measure the volume of the offending noises.

Before, officers were instructed to take a decibel reading 50 feet from the property line, but that line can be hard to locate late at night. The new ordinance requires officers to take a volume measurement 75 feet from the building where the noise is coming from.

The new ordinance also sets specific rules for Jefferson's small downtown area, where homes abut downtown restaurants and a bar.

It's not just that the old ordinance was complicated to enforce, it was so vague that it could not be defended in court, Wirthman said.

This summer, the city's solicitor declined to prosecute a noise ordinance violation citation issued to Mike's Grill and Mike's Downunder -- a Sycamore Street restaurant and bar -- because the city's ordinance was too vague.

The council has been working on crafting the latest version of the ordinance since then.

Councilmembers scrapped prior restrictions that focused specifically on amplified music and broadened the ordinance to cover almost all noises.

The new ordinance sets acceptable levels of noise for different types of neighborhoods, different days of the week and different times of the day.

Between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. noise levels will be capped at 45 decibels in residential neighborhoods, 60 decibels in the downtown and commercial areas and 70 decibels in industrial areas. During the day, between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m., noise levels will be capped at 60 decibels in residential neighborhoods, 65 decibels in downtown and other commercial areas and 70 in industrial areas.

Sixty decibels is about the volume of a normal conversation and 70 decibels is about the volume of a hair dryer, according to the National Institute of Health.